services

Impact Foundation Bangladesh offers screening and treatment of patients through its floating and other land-based hospitals in Chuadanga and Meherpur districts and satellite clinics in remote areas. These arrays of services ensure that no one misses out because they cannot travel or afford to lose a day’s wages to attend. There is a great deal of local confidence in Impact Bangladesh’s health programme. IFB hospitals also provide diagnostic services like pathological/ radiological tests and other clinical investigations for proper diagnosis and treatment. Out-patient Department (OPD) service is available for all categories of patients from 9:00 am to 05:00 pm, 6 days a week, and community-based satellite clinics are organized periodically through fixed and mobile camps.

According to WHO, 50% of the disabling condition can be treated through medical or surgical interventions. Through the projects of IFB, disabled people from poor communities are identified and they are treated at the IFB hospitals. People, who can’t afford three meals a day, can’t think of managing surgery cost for treatment of their disabilities. With the help of IFB’s Eye Surgeon and other volunteer ENT, Plastic and Orthopaedic surgeons from home and abroad, IFB arranges sessions for different surgeries round the year in three project hospitals. Over the years, IFB Has successfully created access for poor people to modern surgical services in Chuadanga, Meherpur, and adjacent districts as well as for the people who reside on the bank of different rivers. Surgical service of IFB includes mainly cataract, ENT, clubfoot, cleft lip/ palate, hydrocephalus, prolapse, etc.

To avoid pregnancy-related complications and prevent maternal and child deaths, IFB provides antenatal and postnatal care services to pregnant women of Chuadanga and Meherpur districts. IFB ensures Tetanus vaccination for all pregnant women. For ensuring high-quality services and mother’s safety, IFB has introduced ultrasonogram and other important pathological tests for pregnant mothers in its hospitals in Chuadanga and Meherpur.

Refractive error is the most common cause of visual defects among school-aged children and unfortunately, the majority of them, particularly in rural areas remain undiagnosed and untreated for years. This ultimately results in early drop-out from the schools. Paediatric cataract constitutes one-third of childhood blindness in Bangladesh. To cope with this situation, IFB organizes regular eyesight test camps in primary schools in Chuadanga, Meherpur, and Jibon Tari sites. A team from IFB hospitals visits the schools to conduct eyesight screening to identify pupils, who are suffering from diminished vision. Then they are taken to IFB hospitals for further screening by doctors for treatment or spectacles. Through this process, IFB also trains school teacher called “school health monitors” so that they can themselves screen their students regularly.

IFB, in collaboration with the government health department, organizes EPI sessions for immunization of children and women of reproductive ages. Through the network of Mothers’ Clubs, IFB raises mass awareness on immunization and the importance of vaccination to mobilize children and women for vaccination against common childhood infections and deadly tetanus.

Malnourished pregnant women give birth to malnourished children and those are at increased risk of being disabled. IFB provides micronutrient supplements such as iron, folic acid to pregnant, and Vitamin A to lactating mothers and children. This simple primary health care intervention does not exist in rural areas but is vital to ensure the wellbeing and safety of mothers and children.

Rubella infection of mothers in the early stages of pregnancy may cause disabilities of the unborn children in the womb, which include hearing and visual impairments, heart defects, brain defects, etc. Some babies will inevitably be stillborn. IFB organizes rubella vaccination camps for the adolescent girls in the schools and colleges of Chuadanga and Meherpur districts and aware of the importance of Rubella protection by immunization and reproductive health.

IFB organizes health education sessions to increase awareness of health and hygiene behaviors among the rural people, mainly through mother’s club meetings and at the hospital OPD. Field Organizers conduct health education sessions in the community.

IFB has established a network of 1,200 Mothers’ Clubs (MC) in Chuadanga and Meherpur districts. Each MC consists of 20-22 mothers, who meet once a month in a courtyard for two hours. The sessions are facilitated by IFB, where they discuss and learn different important health issues such as pregnant mother’s health check-ups, folic acid, and TT vaccines, vitamin A capsules to postnatal mothers, immunization of the children, etc. Then they disseminate the message they learn to their neighbours.